Monday, June 25, 2007

I'm a little late for Earth Day, but I saw this article today and it put me in an environmentally conscious mood... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19415446/.Apparently, those good ol' liberals in San Francisco have decided to ban bottled water (even in water coolers) from all municipal buildings because of the amount of waste created when people throw away water bottles AND because of the gallons of oil it takes to truck in the bottles.With everyone in the US lately waking up the environmental disaster we've engendered in the last several decades, I figured I would offer my own little ecoconscious tip sheet. Nothing too "off the grid," or radical, I hope. Please feel free to add your own suggestions.1. Recycle. Yeah, we've been hearing it since grade school, but here are some easy ways to do it. Use a mug for your morning joe at work instead of a styrofoam cup. Reuse your plastic bags at the grocery store. Hell, Whole Foods will give you cash back for bringing in your own bags.

2. Reduce that carbon footprint. Netflix saves you from driving to the store. Put your car in park when you're waiting (say in an another stupid jughandle). OK, carpooling can be a pain in the ass. At the same time, so is 100 degrees in April. If you can't manage to plan with a friend, then live closer to work, use public transit or WALK.

3. Drive with the windows down instead of using the AC. It does save on gas, as does keeping your tire pressure in check. Mythbusters has proven this one, thought I don't recommend it for my Arizona friends.

4. Damnit if those funny-looking lightbulbs don't work! They are actually worth the investment because they last forever and I swear my electric bill has gone down.

1 comment:

even if we think we're not making an impact individually, every little bit helps! if we all send our ideas out to our friends and they pass it along, think about how many people we've reached. Little things like changing one light bulb leads to thousands of light bulbs being switched to more energy efficient ones.. pretty soon the world will be a greener place and we'll get rid of this wasteful lifestyle we all have adopted.